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Apocalyptic 'tipping points' revealed
Nine ways in which the Earth could be tipped into a potentially dangerous state that could last for many centuries have been identified by scientists investigating how quickly global warming could run out of control.
The "tipping points" for all nine scenarios could occur within the next 100 years
These include the melting of the Arctic sea ice, Greenland ice sheet and west Antarctic ice sheet; the 'switch off' of the Gulf Stream; changes to El Nino, the southern Pacific current; the ending of the Indian and west African monsoons; the collapse of the Amazon rain forest; and the death of the Boreal forests of Siberia and Canada.
The evidence is clear The earth’s eco – systems are on the verge of collapsing.
Oceans are becoming more acidic and temperatures are rising.
This is killing planktons which are the bottom of the food chain and a key producer of oxygen. It is also killing coral which supports 40% sea life and protects vast land areas from the devastating effects of the ocean. Warmer oceans could release methane gas frozen at the bottom of the oceans.
Amazon forest is at risk of collapse.
It holds 20% of the earth store of CO2.
Canadian northern boreal forest are at risk of disappearing.
The northern forest are under attack from pine beetle bug and at risk of fires due to climate change releasing large amounts of stored CO2. They are also a large source producer of oxygen.
Antarctic is loosing mass on the outer edge, faster than it is regenerating itself.
Oceans will begin rising displacing millions of people
Arctic , Greenland and northern permafrost are in a state of catastrophic meltdown.
Large influx of fresh water into the conveyor belt system, increases the risk of shutting it down sending the northern hemisphere into a MINI ICE AGE. Scientist have said that if this happens the rest of the world will continue to heat up and see more drought prone areas.
Melting permafrost hold mass stores of methane gas. It has been estimated that they hold some 500 billion tons of methane gas which is 20 – 23 times more potent as greenhouse gas. It has been estimated that 90% of the permafrost will have been melted to a depth of 3 yards ( Approximately 2.75 meters) by the year 2012. ( from the book With speed and violence by Fred Pearce). Rapid meltdown of Greenland will also add to the rise of the oceans.
These are the key system that makes this planet function.
Climate is changing all over the globe.
We are now seeing record breaking drought, flooding and temperatures
The Dominoes are beginning to fall. The movements appear small.
In time, as things begin to happen faster, the dominoes falling will be larger.
Eventually the whole system will begin to fall.
At this point we could see Abrupt climate change So severe that most can’t imagine it.
In time humanity will find itself trying to keep ahead of climate change in a race for survival
Most don’t realize that the last ten thousand year have been an aberration of nature. An anomaly. Because the norm is this
For last 5 million years there has been nothing but abrupt climate.
If we look at the last 400,000 years, again we see that climate has always been changing.
In this chart we can see that the planet’s climate is constantly moving in and out glaciations periods every 100,000 years. As well we can see that CO2 levels increase and decrease with the change in temperatures as CO2 moves in and out of the oceans. These changes in climate are directly related with the earths rotation around the sun
This video explains the glaciation's process.
The science behind global warming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3BIedPpgkU&feature=user
If we look again at the last 100,000 years we will see constant change
If we look back, you can see that we were coming out of the last glaciation period 14,500 years ago. At that time temperatures rose abruptly, somewhere in the of area of 12 to 15 degrees Celsius in as little as a decade. Then a large lake called Agassi, in central Canada broke free. This sent massive amounts of fresh water down the St Lawenrence flooding the area where the Conveyor belt is located . This freshening caused the conveyor belt to stop, which caused an abrupt climate change sending the northern hemisphere into another ice age for another 1,300 years. Temperature changes were in the magnitude of 15 degrees Celsius and one scientist Richard Alley noted that it looked like it happened in one season. This event was called the Younger Dryas. At the end of the period it ended abruptly as it started, which began the 10,000 years of abnormally calm period, allowing humans to thrive.
From there we can see that there have been minor ups and downs which have resulted in climate changes, resulting in the fall of many civilization such as the Mayans, Anastasia Indians and Egyptians.
If we look back at CO2 levels for the past 400,00 years, we can see in this chart below that CO2 levels during the last 4 ice ages were at a low point of 190ppm and as CO2 moved out of the oceans as the climate warmed they rose to around 280 ppm. Those changes remained consistent for the last 400,000 years. In the chart we can see that in the present day CO2 are increasing. We know from the earlier graphs that CO2 and temperatures follow a parallel path. CO2 is predicted to rise sharply in the coming decades and so we can expect temperatures to follow.
We are now coming to the end of what is called the inter-glacial period and the climate is supposed to slowly be cooling down. However we are finding global temperatures rising.
In this chart from the IPCC we see two lines indicating where the temperatures are going (red line) and where they should be have been going (blue line).
Red includes human influences, blue is without. In addition, models predict (and in the past, predicted) the Northern Hemisphere to warm up faster than the Southern Hemisphere, especially the Arctic, which indeed is what is happening. Also note that land is forecast (and has been observed) to warm faster than the oceans. Also interesting is that 1950 appears to have been the peak of a natural cycle of warming and cooling - and that is starting to rise again, which suggests that the stalled warming/slight cooling in the 1970s occurred before greenhouse gasses became influential enough to overcome that.
Global Warming, Greenhouse Effect, Climate Change. Undoubtedly, these words sum up the single biggest threat to humanity.
If you have any comments orhave something that I can add to this site, I can be contacted at webmaster@aroadmap2extinction.com
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